US senators tell EC: Butt out of Oracle-Sun John Kerry, Orrin Hatch and 57 other senators have written to the European Commission accusing it of taking too long to approve Oracle's takeover of Sun in order to deliberately damage US business. In an open letter Senator John Kerry (Mass) said: "The EC is within its sovereign rights to set the rules for operation in its …
It does not seem strange to me that the creators of MySQL (a really shitting database by the way) are European and the EU is now interfering with the Oracle/Sun sale. Michael Widenius got really pissed and threw a temper tantrum because he didn't like the rules THAT THE NEW OWNERS (Sun paid them 16.6 million euros for MySQL) tried to enforce. Wonder why the EU thinks it has a say in two American companies merging? Could it be that Widenius paid some of that 16.6 euros to have the project stalled? Nah, that would only help Monty Program and Maria and he would not want that to happen no would he? Maybe the US should prevent AirBus aircraft from entering the US because they it is a government influence corrupt organization and produces very unsafe aircraft (AF447, Emirates A340-300;Air France A340-300; Flight 358 Emirates A340-500; Flight 407;China Airlines A300-600)
Your fanancial markets just shot down most of the world and as for safety issues Beoing are hardly spotless. I feel the EU maybe dragging this out a bit but clearly it serves no purpose US senators to get involved in a EU investigation. Too many times the boot has been on the other foot where the US have calle the shots over what they say as uncompetitive practices yet they have imposed rediculous import tariffs to protect their own workforce.
Does this Orrin Hatch honestly believe that because the corporations involved ``are American''[tm] they somehow should be free of any demands by meddlesome ``foreign governments'' or something?
Well yes, of course he does, for he subscribes to the Church Of Free America. To me, where waging war on Barbary pirates to protect your merchant navy and squelch punishing ransom demands is one thing, denouncing ``foreign governments'' as Bad For American Business[tm] is quite another. To this Church, it apparently isn't. And thus we see the base on which American Enterprise[tm] has built a solid and well-deserved reputation as Does Not Play Well With Others.
Frankly, I stay amazed and dismayed that Europe still dances to America's every tune. We really should stop that, as Europe. All together now.
As a born and bred Merkin I blame England for Orrin Hatch in the first place. First of all it is no coincidence that the diehard mormons (which Hatch is) usually have very common English names (Smith, Young, etc.). In fact England kicking out all the religious f_cktards, which of course settled in the colonies and had lots and lots of brainwashed offspring is why there is not only a Republican party but why the USA is such a threat to common sense in the world (only outdid by some Muslims countries IMHO). Just as Gordon Brown is a piss poor example of a good citizen in Blighty you can discount our politicans as being good American citizens.
Dear Senators while we note your concern with respect to potential harm to the businesses involved, unless you can somehow demonstrate that your courts have jurisdiction in the EC and we should dismantle our own legal system and let you run the show, kindly fuck off.
Love,
Kneelie
I seem to recall not so a few years ago that the US was prosecuting the US subsidiaries of EU Companies because the parent EU companies were, quite legally under EU law, trading with Cuba.
The US Congress needs to realise that it is no longer the only 100 tonne gorilla on the block. Economically, in this global world, its main creditor China, and one of its main trading partners, the EU are equal or bigger on certain standards than the US.
The US will just have to wait!!!! The days of elected representatives (many of whom have never travelled outside their nation) of a small percentage of the World's population located East of Shanghai and Tokyo and West of Shannon intimidating all and sundry and passing legislation which impacts 3rd parties who have no recourse are fast coming to an end.
Well, these might be US-headquartered corporations but they have a global presence and as such must respect international laws and not interfere. US senators must stay out of areas where they have no jurisdiction... I suspect the US DoJ are too corporation-friendly as is the rest of US government (eg. corporate donations to senators' campaign funds.. of course, that has no influence on policies at all - not!).
...and, yes, I am a (non-US) Sun employee and I welcome the EU deliberations...
Then why doesn't Oracle just a agree to float it off on it's own.
Or perhaps Oracle think that buying Sun for a couple of billion is a good way of controlling a potential competitor.
Oracle clearly don't want to let go of MySQL so they do have a case to answer.
It's not as if the US authorities don't go after any non US company that ever beats a US one to a major internal deal is it now.
Orrin Hatch was even blunter. He said: "I have become increasingly concerned about the growing body of evidence that foreign regulatory agencies are unfairly using their review processes to impede the business of American corporations.”
RegisterFail was even blunter again. He said: "I have become increasingly concerned about the growing body of evidence that foreign military forces are unfairly using their might to impede the existence of foreign cultures and their sovereign rights.”
" I have become increasingly concerned about the growing body of evidence that foreign regulatory agencies are unfairly using their review processes to impede the business of American corporations "
The time for us to start respecting that viewpoint is the moment that the US repeals all of its laws that unfairly impede the business of European corporations. They could start by repealing their stupid gambling laws, and all of the ones that restrict people from doing business with both Cuba and the US. Until they do that, the gentleman is a disgusting hypocrite.
Oh the hypocrisy of these foreign regulatory agencies. How can they be so anti-American? After all the American Gov'ts & organisations have done for each & everyone of them.
If this is sounding a trifle insincere, I confess. Who could possibly trust an American organisation after what your banks have done to the rest of the world, not to mention the monopolising behaviour of Microsoft, Google attempting to do the same thing, the bastardry of George Dubbya & Iraq, the CIA, George Bush senior & Donald Rumsfeld just to mention those I can list off the top of my head.
Who could be so harsh as to mistrust an American organisation when Americans are so trustworthy? Let's talk about America's anti-nuclear hypocrisy, all the while carting nuclear power around with every major battleship & every large Navy submarine, yet no-one from the Middle East nor Asia should have nuclear power. Let us remember that America is the only country that has used the atom bomb in wartime against another country. Let us also remember that there was no real reason for the second bombing, rather it was done for ultimate testing purposes.
We could now get into Guantanamo Bay & torture practices but lets not. You've got the picture by now. Get over it dipsticks. America has brought the wrath of the rest of the world on them for their Nazi-like dominating behaviour & manipulation of all rules & regulations that they themselves hold "SO DEAR".
The question also begs the religious maniacal focus by Americans that reeks of Catholic hypocrisy (although not just pointed at Catholics, Christians & Jews in total), child abuse, poor behaviour all week but make sure you tell all at Holy Communion & "ye shall be forgiven". Your hypocrisy makes radical Shi'ite Moslems look positively cuddly.
As a Sun employee watching the company I have put a lot of my soul into for the last decade being dismantled by a Euro-crat, I now understand better the mindset of the "new" EU. What has the merger of a software/hardware/storage company got to do with Guantanamo Bay, nukes, crashing Airbuses, and cuddly Shi'ites?
Lets be perfectly clear who is the Super power and who is Empiric relic. For the better part of the last two millenium, European Imperialists have trounced the world, raping and pillaging for personal profit. My country is a bastard offshoot of that practice.
In the last 100 years, we have had to twice land our troops on European soil to clean up European messes. Not the other way around, mate. We battled on European ground and still invest heavily on keeping stability of the EU region. You would all be speaking German or Russian by now if it wasn't for the US imposing its will on European matters. Now, we can not even rely on European assistance against a group of terrorists who think it is religious nirvana to blow themselves up and kill as many innocent people as possible. Oh yeah, giving these guys an atomic bomb would be a great idea. Look what they did with commercial jets.
The US is the last Super Power left and tough if that makes you whine (as usual). We earned it the hard way and we are not about cede that advantage to anyone. We got the subs, jets, drones, tanks, and troops with the backbone to stand up when needed. We are also the driving force force for innovation and technology for the world. And the world financial crisis is a world problem, not just a US one. The fact US banks caused the whole thing to collapse shows just who is reliant on whom. And we in the US are getting tired of the rest of the world blaming us for all of their problems. We don't get it right all the time, but our record is better than anyone's from Europe.
There used to be an old electronic bulletin board rule that said a thread was allow to run until someone called someone else a Nazi or Hitler. Well, Rex has reached that low, so I officially call this thread over. Auf wiedersehen, baby!
Re: Now, we can not even rely on European assistance against a group of terrorists who think it is religious nirvana to blow themselves up and kill as many innocent people as possible.
Well not all the people to the right of the Atlantic have shied away from that issue.
But this is a table that the US really have come to very very recently. For many years the US was a major funder of terrorist organisations. US judges routinely refused to deport convicted terrorists who thought it was fun to bomb and shoot civilians.
But back to the real point here.
If Oracle want to take over Sun, then that is just fine. Although in the normal sense that Anti-Trust laws are applied there is the argument that Larry became one of the world's richest men by selling his Software on other peoples HW and by leveraging other peoples sales forces as a consequence. So in effect he is using the money he earned from their assistance to fight against them. But I don't believe that is the issue that the un-elected and un-electable of Brussels are bitching about. They are bitching that the biggest name in the DB game (Oracle) is buying one of their competitors (MySQL). If Oracle are buying Sun to save your butt then they could make some suitable promise as to the future of MySQL and the Eurocrats would wave it through. But however generous Larry is, he isn't doing this to save your arse. It is the view of those in Brussels that Oracle are buying out MySQL and that you are a total irrelevant pawn who's just got stuck in the middle of the big boys playing business.
To coin one of your hideous phases "chill out dude". This is not a European "lets stick to the Yanks" type of thing. Also please keep to the topic. 2 World Wars have no bearing on this and to taint history with biased rhetoric helps not a jolt either. We are just trying to ensure that a fair and open investigation over the future of a piece of open source software.
But to pick up on your point "we in the US are tired of the rest of the world blaming us for all their problems" we don't and if you don't modify your attitude towards the rest of the world you will find yourselves increasingly isolated - not by your choice this time.
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